The present invention generally relates to a system and a method to mark and/or identify a bag or container for holding a fluid therein. More specifically, the present invention relates to a system and a method for marking and/or identifying a disposable plastic bag or container having an interior for holding a mixture of methylene blue and a blood component, such as plasma. The system marks the bag to indicate whether the bag has been subjected to a process, such as an illumination process, used to treat the mixture, such as for sterilization.
It is, of course, generally known to provide containers having an interior for holding a variety of solutions, fluids, mixtures and the like. Such known bags and containers include a blood product, such as plasma. Viral inactivation is required following introduction of the blood product into the bag. To this end, the bag contains a chemical, such as methylene blue, which is mixed with the blood product. The mixture within the bag is then subjected to intense light of a prescribed wavelength, such as ultraviolet (UV), to photo-activate the chemicals in the bag which, in turn, perform the virucidal action on the blood product.
The photochemical reaction between the intense light and the product within the bag, however, does not produce any easily distinguishable sign indicating that the bag and the product therein has been subjected to a particular treatment. It is important to know whether such a bag and its contents, however, have been subjected to the illumination process. Visual inspection of the contents of the bag is virtually impossible following many treatment processes, particularly where distinguishing between a bag that has been illuminated and one that has not been illuminated is required.
Other systems are known to alleviate this problem and provide positive indication of the bag subjected to illumination. Such systems include application of a bar code identification to bags following subjection to the illumination, application of labels to illuminated bags, paint-marking the bag and/or use of a hot stamp to identify the bag. All of these known systems depend on cooperation and vigilance on the part of the user and can be easily defeated by the users or other individuals involved in the process. Furthermore, some of the systems, such as the bar code identification system, require additional individual illumination machines capable of communicating with a central computer to ensure that data was properly entered into a central data base.
A need, therefore, exists to provide a system and a method for marking and/or identifying a bag which provides positive identification that the bag has been subjected to a process, such as illumination, wherein the process is difficult to detect following completion of the process.